World News - Katrina evacuees in apparent murder-suicide Infant, severely beaten 4-year-old boy also found in Ga. home

A New Orleans couple who had been chased from their home by Hurricane Katrina died in an apparent murder-suicide, leaving behind an infant and a 4-year-old boy who had been beaten so severely he couldn’t open his eyes, police said.Police entered the couple’s rented home in the Atlanta suburb of Austell early Wednesday after a call from a relative in New Orleans.The woman “said that her nephew had called her and stated that he had an argument with his wife and that she was hurt pretty bad, and in fact she was dead,” said police Chief Bob Starrett. The boy was found in the same room with his mother.“He was tied to a chair and had been beaten so bad both of his eyes were completely shut,” Starrett said.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Shiite leaders have launched talks with Sunni and Kurdish politicians on a national unity government, proposing four candidates to be the next prime minister, a Shiite official said Wednesday, nearly six weeks after Iraq’s parliamentary elections.The talks came amid a spate of sectarian violence, including the killing of a prominent Sunni Arab cleric that threatens to disrupt the forming of the new government.A U.S. Marine also was killed by small-arms fire Tuesday in Karmah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, the military said, raising the number of U.S. military personnel killed since the war began in 2003 to at least 2,236, according to an Associated Press count. Elsewhere, an Iraqi television journalist, Mahmoud Zaal, was killed while filming intense fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents near the volatile western city of Ramadi, said Thaer Ahmed, deputy director of the Baghdad television station where Zaal worked. The circumstances surrounding his death were not clear....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11020400/from/RSS/

The Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales what steps are being taken to protect Americans' privacy rights as the Justice Department demands information about Internet searches. In the letter released on Wednesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record) of Vermont asked Gonzales about the subpoena to Google Inc. and three other companies seeking data about what millions of Americans search for on the Internet's leading search engines.Leahy asked about the types of information being sought, how the department intends to use the information while protecting individual privacy rights and civil liberties and whether it will issue any additional subpoenas.Leahy's letter comes at a time of growing criticism in Congress over the government's monitoring of communications, after the disclosure that the Bush administration has been conducting domestic eavesdropping after the September 11 attacks....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060125/pl_nm/google_privacy_dc

The oldest daughter of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was detained Wednesday on arrival in Washington after failing to obey a summons by a Chilean judge who indicted her on tax evasion charges, Chilean and U.S. officials reported.Lucia Pinochet "was the target of an international arrest warrant issued by a Chilean judge" and "was held at an airport in the city of Washington," said Chilean presidential spokesman Osvaldo Puccio.U.S. officials said she arrived at Dulles Airport, outside of Washington, on a flight from Argentina at 7 a.m. They said she was detained but was not under arrest."We're evaluating what to do next. There are a couple of different options," said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security....http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/25/chile.pinochet.ap/index.html?section=cnn_world

A landmark nuclear deal between India and the United States will "die" in Washington if New Delhi supports Iran at the upcoming meeting of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday. A week before the International Atomic Energy Agency meets to discuss Iran's nuclear program, U.S. Ambassador David Mulford said that if India does not vote to refer Tehran to the U.N. Security Council, it would be "devastating" to the deal currently before the U.S. Congress. "I think the Congress will simply stop considering the matter," Mulford told the Press Trust of India news agency....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1539985&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Large bundles of cash meant for Iraq's reconstruction were stashed in filing cabinets, handed over without receipts and gambled away, a report has found. The audit, by US-appointed inspectors, paints a picture of the chaotic misuse of millions of dollars of funds. The lack of oversight had a tragic outcome in one case, when a hospital lift, supposed to have been fixed, crashed killing three people. The report said US post-war planning was limited by a desire for secrecy. There were no detailed, overt preparations for the reconstruction of Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion "to avoid the impression that the US government had already decided on [military] intervention", the report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4646442.stm